It doesn't take lot of arm twisting to get a brew day earmarked on the calendar here at BYO headquarters. And just to toot our own horn, I think we brewed some pretty tasty beers this year — often from recipes that appeared in the pages of Brew Your Own. After all, every couple of weeks our writers send us a fresh batch of homebrew recipes to try, so why resist? This year we've brewed quite a bit of homebrew to keep the office kegerator stocked, and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic about our year of homebrews as we wind down 2013. Since lots of magazines like to do a "best of" list at the end of the year, I thought I'd share at least two of personal favorites from the BYO test kitchen this year.

We went pretty hoppy this year, including an historic IPA, a double IPA, a rye IPA and a fresh-hop black IPA. We also recently brewed an emergency beer when the tap suddenly ran dry — a dark saison, which is the most sentimental batch to me because I got to be the brewmaster (BYO's Recipe Editor and frequent feature story contributor Dave Green tends to hold the mash paddle most often around here).

(Me mashing the grains for our dark saison while trying to look good for an all-grain photo shoot with Charlie Parker)

Fall is my favorite time of the year because of the crisp cool weather, the leaves during the fall color change, and football. Most importantly, fall is also a great time of year for seasonal beer. My wife loves this time of year because my brewing skills become especially useful to her because I brew her favorite fall seasonal beer ... pumpkin ale. Over the years she has sampled a few BBLs-worth of pumpkin ale. She has her go-to pumpkin ales, her hard to find pumpkin ales and her tragic never again pumpkin ales. You might call her somewhat of a pumpkin ale connoisseur. As you might imagine, not all of my pumpkin ales were a winner with my better half, especially in the beginning. There was the year I over-spiced and it tasted like a cinnamon-flavored shoe; or the year I used an ill-advised yeast strain that left me with a beverage somewhere between nutmeg-flavored popcorn and pumpkin cough syrup. My most memorable pumpkin blunder occurred when I added six pounds of pumpkin to the boil leaving me with about eight inches of pumpkin and yeast sludge in my carboy, drastically affecting my final volume. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing because from what I remember that was also the brew resembling a cinnamon-flavored shoe.

Throughout the years, my pumpkin ales have evolved like a living organism similar to Charles Darwin's theory of "natural selection." This general principle of biology describes how an organism's most favorable traits are those that allow them to survive being hunted by predators and natural events that select against them. Thus, an organism changes over time depending on the selective pressure put on it. Each time a change was made in my beer, the pumpkin ale predator (aka. my wife) determined if it would survive or become extinct. So in a way, year after year of natural selection by my wife has made my beer what it is today.

Due to her critical pumpkin ale palate my most recent pumpkin ales have incorporated such changes as baking the pumpkin before mashing it and incorporating lactose for added mouthfeel.Recently, my pumpkin ales have been well received by friends, family, and colleagues. Most notably, I have been asked to brew my pumpkin-derived concoction for a friend's Halloween party (I even made labels incorporating the party throwers initials, which you'll see above), my college roommate's rehearsal dinner, and a work Halloween party (where it won the "best homebrew at a work party" award). About that last point, it is possible this was the first time a homebrew was brought to this particular establishment, but who's keeping track?

My point is that just because your homebrew didn't result in a "perfect" stylistic example, there is still hope if you try to learn from criticism and allow natural selection to be your guide. In time, you too may win the coveted "best homebrew brought to a work party" award. Always remember, if at first you don't succeed, brew, brew again!

My neighbor called me recently with a slight problem. Seems some hop vines were consuming his porch and he wanted help. Well, not help exactly but he was offering me free pickings. Only problem as I saw things was that he had no idea what type of hops he had on his hands, er, front steps. Only problem as he saw things was that I wasn't going to harvest enough of them. I'm a five gallon, extract brewer so I'm not exactly using hops on a large scale. Needless to say, I left his house with enough little green buds to fill a, ah...well, a big sandwich bag.

The hops are pale green and smell a bit oniony. I tried to determine what kind of hop they are but that search quickly went nowhere. Everyone to whom I said, “oniony” replied, “Oniony?” and then, with great confidence, listed the name of a different hop. Apollo, Summit and “I dunno” are the leading candidates for the identity of this hop. So that hasn't been much help. Nor has the internet. Though all signs point to Summit.

I took them to Joe Bair, owner of Princeton Homebrew and all-around knowledgeable hop dude. He said, “Wow, these look great. You picked them at just the right time.” (Rrriight, just like I planned it.) But, alas, even Joe could offer no insight as to the variety, other than suggesting – you guessed it – Summit. So it seems, short of DNA testing, I'm working with a UHO (unidentified hop object).

I rather quickly narrowed my search to the above-mentioned two. I'm a PC user so any app with an "i" in front of it was pretty much eliminated right there. I also was willing to spend some dough so free software options didn't really make the cut. I want to invest in the software as another tool in my brewery. So the idea of using free software that may or may not be around (or supported) in the future didn't hold much appeal.

I downloaded both BeerSmith and BeerTools in order to compare these two leaders in brewing software. Both are excellent applications that will assist any brewer regardless of level. They’re each priced right around $30. BeerSmith is $27.95 and BeerTools is $29.92.

For those readers who don't already know, Brew Your Own's headquarters are in Southern Vermont — about an hour and a half from the brewery that's popping up on every beer drinker's most wanted list these days — The Alchemist. Every now and then our little state gets swept up in a big trend, and I have to admit it's kind of exciting. Right now all of the beer drinkers in Vermont are sort of basking in the glory of The Alchemist and the interest they've been getting for their humble double IPA, Heady Topper.

The reason why everyone loves this beer is obvious - it's just really delicious. But Vermonters also love a story of the little guy overcoming big odds, and in that respect there is a lot to love in Heady Topper aside from the hops and malts.

Heady Topper is a beer sensation that might not have happened. The original brewpub was heavily damaged in the flooding that impacted the entire state during Hurricane Irene in 2011, just before the brewery was set to release the fan favorite in 16-oz. cans for the first time. Shortly following the flood, The Alchemist website read, "Disaster strikes Waterbury. The Alchemist Pub and Brewery was ruined in a once in a generation flood on Sunday night August 28, 2011. While the cannery is fine and on target to open this coming Friday, the Pub will be closed for the foreseeable future. With our endless thanks and gratitude to our loyal and returning friends, customers and fans, we will be back. Stay tuned..."

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